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How to Cut Costs of Higher Ed? .. eliminate the faculty

Bill would partner Washington with online university

Western Governors University Enrollment: 20,000 students nationwide, 900 of them in Washington state. Degrees offered: More than 50 bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in subjects such as business, health, information technology and teacher education. Time to completion: On average, students complete their bachelor’s degrees in 2 ½ years. Tuition:   GWU $5,870 in tuition and fees for the 2010-11 school year — higher than the $3,000 tuition at Washington state two-year community collegeswith a more highly qualified faculty and in person instruction.  . WGU is headquartered in Salt Lake City.

Ed. I began this post as a copy excerpted and commented from an article by Katherine Long, Seattle Times, about legislation pending in the Washington State Senate to recognize Western Governors University as part of our state higher ed. system.

WGU is an online “university” that offers both bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees.

As I researched some of what is in her article, I became very concerned that WGU’s claims are overblown and possibly deceptive to both our legislators and to prospective students.

WGU’s advertising seems worryingly like the ideas being propagated from the right by Governors Daniels of Indiana (a member of WGU’s board), and Kasich of Ohio (see yesterday’s post).  These politicians seem to believe that online education is a free solution to the need to offer a higher education to Ohio and Indiana students.

I talked with one of WGU’s supporters from a major foundation.  She told me that WGU is intended to address unmet needs in rural and under-served populations.  Despite awarding Bachelor or Masters degrees, I was told that WGU is essentially a community college,  rather than an alternative to “traditional” higher ed.  Another person, who reviewed this article, told me that it was his understanding that the pending legislation in our state would recognize WGU but not allow state funds to be used to pay for tuition there.

Perhaps these limited goals are the intent of WGU and the legislation, but my conversations with state legislators and perception of the WGU website suggest that this limited function is not what WGU is promoting to the public or to our legislators.

words in black are from Long’s article.

Who’s teaching? ….  opening up a browser … and choosing a class from the WGU website. A voice read the text on the screen, and stock photos enlivened the lesson. Some lessons start with a quiz, to test what (the student) already knows, and others embed little multiple-choice quizzes within the lesson, then give .. problems to solve. At other times, (the student) is given a phone number to call, and can listen to a lecture over the phone. ….

At a time when Washington’s higher-education budget is being slashed, some lawmakers believe a partnership with WGU could provide more access to college programs without costing the state any money.

(Ed. WGU reported to the IRS that it paid Robert Mendenhall  $689,150.  That impressive salary is above that of the current UW President. The salary also stands out  because WGU does not employ faculty. In fact, students have no access to faculty with expertise in the subjects being taught.

Instead of teachers with expertise, WGU provides  “mentors” who advise students which pieces of software to use and how best to study). Samuel Smith, former president of Washington State University and a member of WGU’s board of trustees, ….  believes WGU is different from other online schools because of its use of (these) mentors, many of whom are college instructors and the majority of whom have master’s degrees.  (Ed. hardly impressive credentials for a “university)”.

WGU students also can get credit for what they already know.  For example, a student majoring in information technology who has already mastered a skill on the job — one that isn’t reflected in his or her academic résumé — could get credit for that work after demonstrating knowledge of the skill, Mendenhall said.

(Ed.  This raises a fascinating question.  Does WGU charge for giving this credit?  If there are no faculty, who examines the students to determine their competency?.

IS WGU a HOAX?

I honestly do not know.  Currently they list 20,000 students and claim that graduation (with a bachelor’s degree) takes 2 1/2 yeas.  Perhaps this is true, however they also claim that they are graduating about 2000 students a year.  Is this low rate the result of rapid growth or is their dropout rate, as is the case for similar profit making schools, really that high?

WGU has gotten a number of major endorsements and support, including support and endorsements from the Gates’ Foundation. Numerous other government, business and corporate leaders are represented on the trustees.

WGU does appear to be accredited and brags especially about being accredited to educate teachers.  Unfortunately, the hoax associated with another accredited  online school, Ashford, raises serious issues with the accreditation of online schools.   Ashford got this credential by buying a bankrupt, but accredited campus. Nowhere on the WGU website does it describe their process of accreditation.

It is hard to imagine an employer or a graduate training program accepting more than a limited range of WGU credentials.  Even for for teaching, I find it difficult to imagine that WGU “mentors,” who are not teachers, can prepare a WGU graduate to teach elementary school  and even more difficult to see how these graduates are prepared to teach high school social studies or math. I suspect Microsoft would be more likely to hire someone with an associate degree from the  Seattle Central Community College than someone from WGU with a “Bachelor of Science ” degree.

A post on the web heightened my concerns.  A biology student from USC transferred her program to WGU  to accommodate having a baby and a move from California.  Some of her comments add to to my worry that WGU misrepresents itself.:

This is an online university and is accredited, so I thought it would be safe, but it is not. I had to relocate my senior year as a biology major at USC, so I was trying to find an online university where I could complete my last semester of college.

I start classes, if you can call the WGU intoductions to online education course a class. If you have an 8th grade education it is essentially busy work for a few weeks (cutting and pasting things from the school’s web site into Word documents to answer questions).

After this course was over I finally get what courses transferred and come to find out out of 115hrs of courses from a well-ranked state university about 12 classes transferred. I was enrolled in their education major to teach high school biology.

I was a biology major at USC (a school that has millions in NIH grants for science research) and all of my grades were As or Bs and NONE of them transferred! Instead I had to go to a local tech school and take online tests in the subject areas. Classes with actual labs taught by PhDs weren’t enough to transfer, but a book report and a test was enough to get credit through the school.

My advisor told me that I should be able to graduate in as little as 3 years! I could go to the local community college and graduate in 2 semesters. What’s accelerated about a program that doesn’t accept core class transfers from other schools (although they will lead you to believe that almost everything will transfer).

This school comes across as a diploma mill that makes you homeschool yourself and then gives you a piece of paper. The scary thing is that they are turning out teachers every day that could be teaching your children based on this sorry excuse for a curriculum.

To be fair to WGU, this is one student.  Still her comments seem to be consistent with what I saw when I went to their  very slick website .

Whether WGU actually has a faculty or not, Like Ashford and Phoenix, WGU seems to invest heavily in web based advertisement intended to attract paying clients. (here are some examples: Indiana, Online Advertising, YouTube Video ad placements)  Moreover, despite bragging about NOT having a faculty, graduation at WGU is eerily like that at a traditional college .. academic gowns and all.  A berobed cadre files in to the scratchy sound of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance.  Someone sings the Star Spangled Banner. Students get up and give impressive speeches, effusively thanking the school.

All of these trappings, the widespread web advertising and lack of faculty seem especially strange in a non profit.    Phoenix, the largest of the profit making online schools, is  now being accused of using similar  tactics to get federal funds to pay for student scholarships.

Like Phoenix, none of WGU’s courses involve teachers or faculty with knowledge of the subject matter; instead   ….WGU’s “faculty” …) construct a curriculum by searching for, and purchasing, courses already available online,…  WGU’s courses come from traditional schools that have created online classes, .. courses developed by textbook publishers, and  from training developed in-house by major corporations. “We use the technology to teach — not the faculty,” Mendenhall said.

(Ed. Supposedly all of this is overseen by academic councils.  Similar councils in normal universities are comprised of experts in the field.  However, I was surprised by the list of faculty on the council for liberal arts.  None of these people seem to have credentials in the fields we usually think of  as liberal arts:  Here is the list from the WGU website:

WGU Faculty Council on the Liberal Arts

Richard Cutler,  Professor of Statistics and Chair of Graduate Committee
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Utah State University
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley

Gwendolyn M. Hall, Principal Infrastructure Protection Planner. URS Corp
Ph.D., University of Maryland, College Park

Thomas Lee Hilgers, Director, Manoa Writing Program
University of Hawaii at Manoa, Ph.D., University of Hawaii

William B. MacGregor, Professor, Department of Professional and Technical Communications
Montana Tech of the University of Montana, Ph.D., University of Colorado, Boulder

David B. Porter, Academic Vice President and Provost
Berea College D.Phil, Oxford University

Alison E. Regan. Interim Director, Marriott Library Technology Assisted Curriculum Center
Ph.D., University of Texas-Austin

James Trefil, Clarence J. Robinson Professor of Physics, George Mason University
Ph.D., Stanford University

This odd list raises  other questions about WGU.  If, as I assume,  grading is by machine graded text, does this mean WGU students never write essays? If they do, are these graded by what WGU calls “mentors?”

(A student commented that) all the different brands and sources of lessons have a steep learning curve at first because each one looks and operates a little differently. “It can get confusing — you have to have a good sense of what you’re going to do,” he said.

While this salary is comparable t what many supposedly non profits are paying their CEOs, it is well into the high ranks for a traditional university, especially for one that is seeking to be recognized by Washignton State as a public university. It may be very importnat to know whether this Universoty president also makes money from his postion on boards of for profit firms or holdings in comapnies that suport WGU.

State Sen. Scott White, D-Seattle, who opposes the bill, says WGU should not be considered a replacement for classroom-based education. But its supporters, including Sen. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup, says WGU could help meet some of the worker retraining needs in the state now. Presumably this would come from the state’s worker retraining program.

Earlier this session, the House voted 70-26 in favor of HB 1822, which would create a partnership between the state and WGU, similar to a partnership WGU established last year with the state of Indiana. The measure is now before the Senate.If the bill passes, WGU’s  standing in the state would be solidified, likely helping it attract more students.  Mendenhall said. The bill also would allow WGU to be included in agreements for the transfer of college credits among Washington institutions.

(Ed. While supporters of HB 1822 claim the bill would not cost the state money,  I assume that designations as a Washington state university means that state funds will go there in the form of aid.  In fact the WGU website advises students to seek state and federal support. Tuition at the “university” is  $5,870.  The comment on their website is very odd:

How does WGU keeps its tuition so low?

As a non-profit university, WGU doesn’t need to benefit shareholders.

$5,870 is NOT a low tuition. The resources of WGU, other than their impressive marketing resources, are comparable to one of Washington’s excellent community colleges.  (One  of these, Bellevue, is now offering four year degrees like those e offered by WGU and Cascadia in Bothell may follow this model).  .WGU’s $5,870  compares with the $3,000 tuition at a state two-year community college.  Even our full fledged state colleges, at $6,956. are only a $1000 more expensive .. a $1000 that goes toward faculty ranked at the top of  their peers in the USA.  Even the  University of Washington, the number 28 ranked world class university and one an elite US “public ivies”, costs about $8,700.  While these state schools do receive additional funding from government, it is hard to see WGU as the bargain it claims to be.

… seems to me that President Mendenhall is earning his $689,150!)  see related posts here.

 

 


0 Comments Add Yours ↓

  1. LEGO #
    1

    Isn’t the UW required to accept community college credits? If the WGU bill passes does that man UW will also have to accept WGU credits?

    For that matter, could a BS or MA graduate from WGU qualify for grad school at the UW?

  2. LEGO #
    2

    On advice of the Faculty Senate, looked up the UW requirements.

    It appears that IF HB1822 passes, the UW may be REQUIRED to accept GWU credits!

    Here they are:

    * Among community college transfer students, the highest admission priority is given to those with academic associate degrees and those with 90 transferable credits taken in preparation for a professional academic major. Applicants with fewer than 90 credits may also be admitted when early transfer is advisable, but the number of such transfers will remain small.

    * The University of Washington Seattle generally dedicates thirty percent of its new undergraduate spaces annually to Washington community college transfer students. (Included are Running Start students expecting to earn 40 or more transfer credits at a Washington community college.)

    * The University also admits applicants who have completed fewer than 40 quarter credits (slightly less than one year of college) at the time of application. However, admission for these applicants is competitive and limited.

  3. Amy Kinsel #
    3

    By the way, there are CTC faculty who want to protest the trend toward teacher-less instruction that we are worried about, and the public’s and legislature’s idea that the problem with education is the teachers. It parallels the idea that the problem with government is public employees. Just get rid of all the teachers and public employees and that will solve the problems with public education and government!

    Let me know if you have ideas about how CTC faculty can be more allied with the faculty at four-year colleges and universities. We have been dealing with some of the push of K-12 controls and measures into higher education for longer than you at the universities have been dealing with it–stuff like measuring the success of the institution by “completion rates”–and stuff like Bill Gates’s comment to the Governor’s Association a couple weeks ago that he could measure the success of each department at a university by whether the graduates of that department get jobs in their fields. Well, so much for liberal arts if that’s the measure.

    You at the university have the luxury of teaching students who go through an admissions process and might be able to make their way through self-directed study in some fashion.

    The open-enrollment students we see at community colleges are in no way, shape, or form self-directed. The very idea that they could teach themselves through online classes is absurd.

    Oh, and in another fabulous development, learning management systems are getting into content now. I’ll paste in below an article from Inside Higher Ed about Blackboard launching online content for developmental education. Administration at my college tried to foist a Blackboard developmental math class on us (putting it on the Spring quarter schedule without even consulting faculty in the math department), but the faculty union put a stop to it–at least for now.

  4. theaveeditor #
    4

    I called Phoenix to get an idea of the comparative costs:

    WGU claims it can give a student a BA for 15,000 in 2 1/2 years. Phoenix, says this would cost $12,400 and take 4 years. That is impressive if correct.

    On the other hand those same 2 1/2 years in a WA state community college would cost the student under $10,000 and includes faculty.

    Even then the accreditation is confusing. GWU claims to be a University but does that mean it is qualified to educate college students in areas they would prepare them for postgraduate training? E.g. would a BS in Biology from WGU qualify a student to apply for vet school or to become a veterinary assistant?

  5. 5

    First I quote the senate bill(SECOND SUBSTITUTE SENATE BILL 5136).

    Then I make some comments that I will also forward to certain legislators who i hope have some influence over the fate of this bill.

    I am against the passage of this bill at this time as I think the concerns raised by Prof. Schwartz should be heeded before passage, and I think so far not as much thought about this bill has been put forward as is appropriate.

    “The legislature intends to partner with Western Governors University, a regionally and nationally accredited nonprofit and independent university, to establish Western Governors University -Washington. Western Governors University would offer online, competency-based degrees and provide enhanced access to postsecondary education for all Washington students, including dislocated workers and placebound students. The legislature further intends that the
    institution be recognized as a Washington baccalaureate degree-granting institution that is self-supporting and does not receive state funding.

    It is the intent of the legislature that the higher education coordinating board, the state board for community and technical colleges, and the other institutions of higher education in Washington include the institution in policies and agreements regarding the
    efficient transfer of credits and courses between institutions.”

    Comments: It seems the legislature intends this online enterprise be treated similarly to conventional educational enterprises in our state, but why they wish to give such an imprimatur and mark of legitimacy is not so clear to me.

    Many legitimate questions can be raised about this proposed law, and it is not at all clear to me that appropriate study of the consequences have been done.

    Our student citizens deserve careful treatment, and I am not so sure that is what has happened so far.

    So I strongly recommend a careful study of the costs and consequences of this bill to our student ctizens be undertaken before it is passed.

    I thus agree it should not be passed at this time and will so inform our legislators.

  6. 6

    i was warned twice now by a junior colleague about misuse of public property after i wrote my colleagues to urge them to comment to their legislators about wgu-washington.

    i appeared to resist his warnings i guess, as he then wrote again to say why he is so fearful, which was interesting, involving intimidation of a u wisconsin prof by wisconsin republicans.

    the profs email files are being requested under freedom of information rules.
    ——————————————” It’s stories like this that have me on edge: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/03/my_worlds_collide.php#more?ref=fpblg
    ———————————
    my response to his worry:

    it is why the bill of rights has many articles in it stating the limits of government and why it was written soon after the usa was organized as a separate country;

    our forbears knew the kings men were out to get them, no holds barred

    and they feared a lot their own new government would do the same.

    they were right to have such fears;

    and we are wrong when we ignore our need to fight off all government efforts to suppress us, including intimidation such as the wisconsin republicans are using against this prof

    did you know several uw profs were hounded out for being suspected commies by their own uw president?

    and spent the rest of their lives depressed and fearful and in poverty?

    a pretty good book published by uw press i think chronicles this dark past of the uw

    we are unfortunately pretty vulnerable and likely targets of witchhunters of all political colors

    if we do not stick together we are toast

    the uw professoriate of yore went along in fear of the same medicine being given to them as the uw president gave to their pinko colleagues

    or were themselves closet witchhunters


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  1. Follow up: Is the loss of faculty jobs justified by magical new technology? /  The Ave 21 03 11
  2. WGU’s model for “online education.” There IS a better way. /  The Ave 22 03 11